As I approached the lord's mansion, I scented something different with my enhanced sense of smell.

Perfume... Apple perfume?

Almost all of the staff in the mansion use perfume, but none of them apple-scented. All of them are flower-scented. Someone else must've visited. I wonder who it is?

Of course, the scent became stronger as I approached the doors.

Green apples.

As I pushed them open, I heard Besley, his father, and a certain woman speaking.

Wait, could it be?

I tracked both the scent and the noise into the dining room. The door was open, so I slinked in and found a charmingly beautiful tall woman with bright red(but not pink) dress, a red fedora, and calm, piercing blue eyes. And... She's pregnant.

================================

It was good to be back home. As much as I loved Bermuda, where my family is will always be where every part of my body, mind, and soul belong.

As soon as I arrived, the family's staff tended to me. They said that my husband, Gracius, is doing the occasional check of Univ's market and my son, Besley, is out to play in the forest like he normally does.

That's when I saw Gracius walking in the distance to what seems like a hurried pace towards our home. I giggled as he tripped and almost fell.

When he was close, I was about to speak, but he pulled me into a kiss. Nothing much, just a short two-second kiss, but it did convey a lot of his love and I could feel how much he missed me from the kiss.

"Anna, my darling, how have you been?" My husband asked as he held my hands.

"I've been healthy, hun, although I do miss you."

"Why don't we sit in our home and relax before anything else?"

"I'd love to," I said, having the weight of a soon-to-be baby added onto my own weight.

We walked quite slowly, but he then suddenly said something that caused a few seconds of panic from me.

"Anna, you went to Bermuda, didn't you?"

"W-why do you think so?!"

He smirked, "There have been rumours of people sighting you on Yala's port, and there is no good beaches there or anywhere near. I don't think there is any beach there at all! So I pieced the puzzle together with the fact that it's the only way a citizen of our kingdom to travel to Bermuda, and it's not the norm to do so."

I went wide-eyed and started asking for forgiveness. "Honey, I'm so terribly sorry that you had to hear it that way. I was just curious and I always was since I was a little girl. So I-"

"Darling, it's not the fact that you went there that disturbs me."

"H-huh?"

My husband sighed, "I'm not against Bermuda. But I'm not with it either. I'm neutral about it. I never told you this because most of the time, our staff is around us and it becomes too risky to talk about it in case a rumour spreads about how we are not against Bermuda."

He then looked up a little, reminiscing an incident, "The last time a low royal was revealed to like Bermuda, they got burnt to death, and the only time a high royal likes Bermuda, she was then disliked by the country and was hated by the rest of the royals."

"Yes, I remember."

"What I am against in your travel is that you were sloppy enough to be seen. You should've told me you're going there instead so I could hire a few pro-Bermuda, illusion-specialized mages from Yala."

Illusion-specialized mages! How could I not think of that?!

"I'm sorry for that, Gracius," I said sheepishly.

He sighed again, "I'll have to be the one dealing with all the curious people and snoopy royals now... Moving on, how is our unborn child?"

By now, we are already sitting at the dining room table. When he asked, the baby coincidentally started kicking. "I think he or she wants to speak to you," I said as I grabbed his left hand and directed it over to my bloated stomach.

He started feeling the kicks and smiled, "Ooh! That was a strong one!" I smiled too.

Suddenly, loud and quick footsteps were heard coming from outside the room and after a second or two, the door practically slammed open as Besley appeared in the middle of the opened space. He shouted "Mom! as he ran and tackle-hugged, almost tipping the chair over.

Gracius shouted "Careful!" as I 'oof'ed because of my son's tackle-hug.

"Besley! I missed you too, sweety, but you wouldn't like to hurt your new brother or sister in my tummy, right?" I lightly scolded him. He let me go and backed off a step before he quickly shook his head 'no'. I giggled, but that stopped when I saw the displaced carpet in the hallway. "Besley! How many times did your father and I tell you to not use magic in here unless you are learning with your teachers? Now help the maids place those carpets back or you'll not be sitting with us."

He nodded, embarrassed, and went to clean the carpets up.

"Now, how was Bermuda? What was it like?" Gracius asked me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After I told him all my experiences in Bermuda, I asked him about everything that has been going on in town. The first week I was gone, the town was the town. Nothing serious happened and the normal routine of work my husband does happened. But the second week interested me. He told me everything about the dragon and how there is an increase in troublesome monsters due to an incident that involves it. The name was... Troy?

Besley takes care of the dragon and completely vouches for it everytime someone is worried of its behaviour. From what I heard, they have

"Could you, like, do that thing where you can look into any creature's eyes and see their intentions to Troy. I think he is peculiar enough to be checked," asked my husband.

I was surprised by his request. It's a talent I have for being such an animal lover and spending more time with animals than people when I was young. Animals also trust me much quicker than anyone else. Normally, everyone I know starts mocking me about it. That's the first time I've seen someone admit to recognizing that talent.

Before I get to answer back, Troy's head peeked from the slightly open door. Speak of the devil and he shall appear.